Retired Award

The Intern of the Year Award honors a young person in NH who has made an outstanding impact on a company during their time as an intern.

2020 Winner

Madison Olsen spent last spring as a Student-Teaching Intern at Hinsdale High School. When the pandemic hit in March, many schools were forced to make the shift to remote learning for what they thought would only be in the short-term – though it didn’t turn out that way. Almost immediately after starting her internship, Madison became a teacher-lead with the goal to provide opportunities for all of her students to achieve and learn, despite varying learning challenges. Similar to many other schools throughout the state, during this period of COVID-19, Hinsdale schools struggled with wi-fi and access to technology, and community demographics created a large challenge for remote learning. Madison designed a curriculum that fit a remote learning model and focused on engaging her students – coming up with creative ways and using available technology to communicate with students. Madison’s incredible work did not stop at her internship. She was the President of the Class of 2020 at Keene State College and won both the 2019 Mary W. Ruell award from the NH Retired Educator Association and the 2020 Presidents’ Leadership Award from the University System of New Hampshire. In the words of her nominator: “Maddy is a leader. Plain and simple. But it is this dedication that makes Maddy not only a leader—but a leader who aspires to lead through teaching.”

2021 Winner

Emma Wisniewski spent her internship at Partnership for Public Health in Laconia, New Hampshire. Emma joined the organization to pursue her interest in public health and she joined the organization during the pandemic to help adapt and combat the COVID-19 virus as well as serve the public. While Emma started in an entry-level position, she understood the scope of the organization’s important work. Throughout her internship, Emma brought out-of-the-box thinking to the table and advanced creative ideas and solutions, enabling partnership for public health to continue enhancing its public service. Through her role as an intern, Emma was an integral part of the organization’s response to COVID-19. She created a vaccine point of distribution system, recruited and scheduled volunteers for point of distribution sites, created “Public Health Network” a COVID-19 resource newsletter, registered vaccine recipients, and created partnership for public health’s COVID-19 vaccine informational resource page and blog, among many other achievements.

2019 Winner

Allie Withee spent her summer as a Project Coordination Intern at CCA Global Partners in Manchester. Allie’s main project was for the Mission Builders Co-op. She developed a plan to provide fundraising support for nonprofit organizations. She began the project by researching nonprofit fundraising software, interviewing local nonprofits to determine their needs, and researching the areas that the co-op could fulfill. The end result was a proposal and summary of what Mission Builders is and what it could do. Allie’s work has the potential for building the foundation for an entirely new division for CCA Global. CEO Howard Brodsky showed her work to the NH Charitable Foundation and her plan could change the future of the non-profit sector. He also says “in the past 14 years of all my interns, Allie is not only the intern of the year, but should be the intern of the century.”

2018 Winner

Jacqueline Rahl, a recent graduate of the University of New Hampshire, majoring in Communications, held a Marketing Internship position with Sprague Operating Resources LLC located in Portsmouth. As one of her major projects, she was tasked with assisting in the brand’s refresh project – working with tight deadlines, designing internal and external marketing materials, and actively participating in strategy meetings. She filmed and directed two major video projects and used her background in photography to create a digital assets library – making the brand more recognizable throughout the industries Sprague serves. Her contributions during her time at with the company helped make the Sprague community more connected, boosted employee morale, and increased brand awareness in the communities in which employees live and work. As one of her recommendations stated, “more than any other intern we have had, she has made the greatest and widest impact on the company overall with her ability to support many departments.”